Offering new age logistics ecosystem to help $200-bn unorganised Indian transport industry: ReturnTrucks CEO

ReturnTrucks, a Visakhapatnam-based startup is cruising ahead in realising its vision to improve truck efficiency, bringing visibility and assurance to the shipment through innovative digital solutions that cater to the small and medium transporters. In an exclusive interview with Bizz Buzz, Sudhakar Vintha, co-founder and CEO of ReturnTrucks, said the idea of ReturnTrucks was conceived in 2013 when he had to shift goods from one city to another. He wanted to transport goods and contacted an agent, who said the vehicle would be available in an hour. But no truck came for the next three days. In the meanwhile, he found another truck, which had been lying idle for three days without any business. This led to realising a better way of doing things by aggregating all truck owners and load owners

How could you find out a solution to the problem faced by many like you?

We did market research to validate the severity of the problem and the industry is unorganised with almost no technology to streamline these challenges. Our goal was to do an Uber or Ola of trucks with a focus on a return journey. But we couldn't get much traction to that model due to the legacy approach and payment models. We pivoted multiple times to adapt to the market needs and eventually became a solution provider. Now, ReturnTrucks is a new age transport ecosystem offering customised digital solutions and helping the $200 billion unorganised Indian transport industry effectively managing their operations.

As a startup with an out-of-the box idea, did you encounter a bumpy ride all these years?

Yes, we had many bumpy rides and sometimes we hit a roadblock. One of the biggest challenges in managing truck aggregation (our first idea) was the payment model and to beat the existing operating model. We couldn't break the traditional payment models unless we own the fleet, or we get the fleet on lease which require deep pockets. Thanks to vehicle tracking and solution focused approach, our vision kept moving us into the right direction.

What is your background?

Prior to ReturnTrucks, I worked with various Fortune 50 organisations in the past 17 years and gained a rich analyst experience. Before ReturnTrucks, I worked with Cisco, Capital Group and Yahoo and successfully led Smartkids, a portable application organisation for US basic education. Our co-founder Narendra Nerla, who had experience in multiple startups building leadership and a work culture that enabled us to deliver the best business solutions for clients and ROI for all the stakeholders is an asset.

How are you different from others?

With 80 per cent truck operators with less than 5 trucks, this $215 billion (projected for 2022) industry in India is wide open for different players and requires a lot of on-ground work to bring technology awareness and inculcate best practices. Our deep market understanding, experienced industry advisors bring the right expertise in building our solutions. As far as customer traction is concerned it's not a smooth ride, the first 3-4 years is learning the industry that had a lot of resistance to digitisation.

How is your real-time visibility solution and other innovations?

ShipmentX, our real-time visibility solution is successfully implemented in three countries for some of the largest freight forwarding companies in the world. Superfleet, our fleet management solution is gaining good traction in India with over 15 transport operations in the beta launch and getting ready for a full fledged market launch RTUnion is currently used on over 20 transport unions to streamline their day to day operations. Our consultative approach helps us gain more traction in the focused markets and more resources will help us reach out to this large untapped industry.

What is projection and roadmap?

ShipmentX's global presence, superfleet's initial traction is a big booster for our growth. We are growing 2 times this year and looking for launching operations in North America during the current financial year. We onboarded a senior leadership in the USA and she will drive the growth engine. Superfleet's GTM strategy post-Covid will take us to the next level in fleet management space competing with the likes of fleet, locaNav.

What are the challenges posed to you during the pandemic mainly due to disruption in normal life after enforcement of lockdown in multiple spells?

Pandemic hits everyone and transport is no exception. But, the digitisation efforts in the industry didn't stop and in fact, some of our clients saw the real value of the solutions during the pandemic. Our solutions helped our clients manage their fleet operations remotely, optimise their spending and effectively manage their last mile deliveries. I am confident we will pass the pandemic like any other challenge and the industry will evolve much stronger to handle any such situations in a better way in the future.

What do you expect from the government to help young entrepreneurs mainly involved in supply chain management?

The government has a bigger role to play in supply chain management by encouraging startups and young entrepreneurs to build solutions for their logistics requirements. It's an opportunity to replace the legacy systems with innovative solutions using the latest technologies. Startup India and other government initiatives in the logistics space are great steps and hope they use startup solutions in the government programs.

Are you happy with the present startup ecosystem? What else is needed to spread innovation culture among youngsters?

It's a great time to be in the startup world and be part of the ever-growing ecosystem in the country. Pandemic forced everyone to go virtual and global and helped many startups to explore the global startup ecosystem. It's time for industry bodies and governments to partner with universities and colleges to capture the innovation at the student level and convert them into viable business solutions. Youngsters should participate in industry or industry body hackathons to get the real experience of ideation and prototype building.

Funding and mentoring in addition to patenting and copyrights are the prerequisite for successful handholding. What was your experience?

We are Startup India recognised and we got the trademark for our names. We are looking forward to working with National Research Development Corporation (NRDC) for copyrights and patents for our solutions. It's fortunate to have NRDC local office in Vizag and we hear some great things about them. We bootstrapped the idea and continue to invest in it. Our over 20 years of industry expertise came handy in handling some challenging situations more maturely and our strong advisory board is our confidence in staying in the industry.

What is your accomplishment so far? Did you get any startup award?

ReturnTrucks was awarded for Disruptive Transportation Connect Solutions at the 60th FM & CRE Connect Conference by Facility Managers Worldwide as part of FM Tech Awards & Investments. We bootstrapped for $0.5 million and most of the investment went into technology development. We achieved operating profit in the current year and committed to invest more into India's digital dream to become a leading new age transport ecosystem in the country.

Have you pitched anywhere before? If yes, please provide details.

We did pitch at a couple of events. We had deep conversations with one of the logistic operators in the country. Covid delayed our efforts to bring more partners to drive the dream, but we are confident of closing on a fund for our global expansion.